They were protesting at an elementary school threatened by a 2.8-billion-gallon coal sludge impoundment where coal dust in the air exceeds acceptable limits. Protestors trespassed on land owned by coal giant Massey Energy.

The protest is part of a string of increasingly dramatic actions objecting to the Obama Administration’s announcement that the EPA will reform, but not abolish, mountaintop removal mining. Later this week, Congress will host a hearing titled, “The Impacts of Mountaintop Removal Mining on Water Quality in Appalachia.”

“We are all complicit in mountaintop removal whenever we turn on our lights, so we are all responsible for ending it,” said Brune, executive director of Rainforest Action Network, a lead supporter of the action today. “Mountaintop removal, the world’s worst strip-mining, is unacceptable. Period. This is not a practice that needs to be reformed. It is a practice that needs to be abolished.”